Gallic Harvester

In ancient Roman times most labor-saving machines were human slaves, whose feelings about monotonous labor did not count. One of the few exceptions was a device that Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.) said was used to harvest grain on the great estates of Roman Gaul. It had, he said, a large frame fitted with teeth and carried on two wheels. When pushed through ripe wheat by a pair of oxen, the toothed frame tore the heads from the stalks and collected them in a box.

Pliny did not say how well the Gallic harvester worked (probably not well), and few other classical authors even mentioned it. No contemporary drawing of it was known, and there was a fair possibility that it might have been only as real as some other items in Pliny, such as people in India who have only one foot and sometimes use it as a parasol.* But last week an ancient carving was proving that the Gallic harvester really existed, just about as Pliny described it.

For six years Belgian Archaeologist Edmond Fouss has been excavating Roman and pre-Roman ruins near the village of Buzenol in southern Belgium. Three weeks ago his workers came on a wall of stone blocks apparently taken from a monument built in the 1st or 2nd century A.D. and made into a fortification. Many of them are carved, showing scenes of ancient provincial life. On one of them are a man and woman holding hands. Nude dancers gambol across another.

The prize block, which has just been cleaned of its incrustations, shows the debated Gallic harvester. It has two wheels and a comb of teeth, just as Pliny said, and a box to catch the heads of grain. In front, carrying a shovel-like implement, is a laborer. The only important deviation from the Pliny version is that the motive power appears to be a mule instead of oxen.

*The grain of truth in this story may be the tribesmen in the southern Sudan and elsewhere who still stand on one foot with the other foot held flat against the shin.

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